Decide paid ads and brand bidding as a policy, not as fraud
After this lesson you can
Choose between no paid ads, one whitelisted paid-ads partner, geographic carve-outs, or open paid ads, based on whether your funnel converts paid traffic, and enforce it with the tools you actually have.
Decide paid ads and brand bidding as a policy, not as fraud
Whether affiliates may run paid ads, and whether they may bid on your brand name, is the policy question most programs never decide. They discover it instead, usually from their own ad costs. Decide it here, from your own numbers.
Start from your funnel, not from fear
Before any policy, one check: does paid traffic convert for you? If you run ads yourself and visitors sign up and pay, an affiliate running ads will convert too, and you pay them only when a customer pays you. If your own paid traffic bounces, an affiliate's will bounce too, and allowing paid ads produces applicants and clicks and nothing else.
Why programs that allow it allow it
The reasoning that changes minds, including ours: an affiliate's ad points at your domain, so your own cost per click does not rise. They fill the gaps your budget does not cover, the hours after your daily budget runs out, the regions you do not target. They take the risk, because they pay for the ads and earn only on paid customers. And your competitors are bidding on your brand name whether you allow affiliates to or not; the only question is whether the top result is someone earning from your success or someone taking it. Reditus allows affiliates to bid on its own brand name, because it runs no brand ads itself.
What no tool can enforce
Nobody can see inside an affiliate's ad account, not you and not the platform. A policy of "paid ads yes, but not on our brand" is therefore a policy you cannot check, and it is not worth writing. Make the decision binary, or stage it.
The staged policy
- Closed. Paid ads not allowed, and the automatic rejection of referrals that arrive from paid search switched on. An affiliate who runs ads anyway sees no referrals at all, and stops within days because nothing is landing.
- One partner. Keep the policy closed for everyone, make a written agreement with one paid-ads partner you have spoken to, and monitor. Anyone else's paid-search referrals are rejected and the affiliate gets an email.
- Carve-outs. Allow it in a region or for a keyword set you do not cover yourself.
- Open. Once it demonstrably converts, allow it, watch the per-affiliate earnings per click, and keep the flags on.
Key takeaways
- Check first whether paid traffic converts for you. If it does not, allowing paid-ads affiliates produces nothing.
- An affiliate's ad points at your domain: your cost per click does not rise, they cover what your budget does not, you pay on results.
- No tool can see inside an affiliate's ad account. A "yes, but not on our brand" policy cannot be checked.
- Stage it: closed with auto-reject, one partner by agreement, carve-outs, then open.
- Paid ads is the setting that most changes who applies. Decide it and write it down.
The detail lives in the help centre
This lesson tells you the order and the judgement. The clicks are in the articles below. Open one, do the step, and you will find a way back to this lesson at the top of the article.
Step-by-step: do this now
The exact clicks live in the help centre. Open the article, do the step, come back.
Reference: read if you need the detail
Background you can skip on a first pass.
Do this before the next lesson
Each step says how much counts as done. Doing a third of it and moving on is how programs stall.
Questions we hear at this point
Can Reditus stop affiliates from bidding on our brand name?
Nobody can see inside an affiliate's ad account, so no platform can enforce a brand-bidding ban directly. What you can do: keep paid ads closed and switch on automatic rejection of referrals from paid search, so an affiliate who runs ads anyway earns nothing and stops. Or allow paid ads deliberately for a partner you have spoken to.
We do not run brand ads ourselves. Should we let affiliates?
That is the case where it usually makes sense. Competitors bid on your brand whether you allow affiliates to or not. An affiliate running the ad points it at your domain, pays for it, and earns only when a customer pays you. Check that your funnel converts paid traffic, then allow it for partners you have spoken to.
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